The other day I found myself in an unfamiliar Brooklyn apartment — a stranger dressed all in white stroking my ear with a Q-tip. That’s not something that happens every day.

When I moved to the next room, another stranger swept a makeup brush against my arm and whispered a story from her childhood. Later, I drew with charcoal on a large artist’s pad with a third stranger as we listened together to the sound’s varying tenors.

No, I wasn’t abducted by a cult. I had been swept into a phenomenon called autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), which first became popular as a YouTube sensation and can now be experienced as a real-life performance called Whisperlodge.

Autonomous sensory meridian response is also being used to sell things. It’s so popular, in fact, there was even an IKEA ASMR advertisement released this month that has already racked up more than 250,000 views.

For those who experience ASMR, and not everyone does, it’s described as an enjoyable tingling feeling commonly triggered by sensory experiences such as whispering, tapping or the sound of crinkling paper. People say ASMR — which is compared to activities like meditation or massage — helps them with stress relief, relaxation and falling asleep. Though ASMR hasn’t been studied much, some observers believe it could have important therapeutic applications.

In some ways live ASMR appears to be a natural extension of the YouTube videos, in which performers (who call themselves ASMRtists) faux-brush the viewer’s hair, or pretend to massage their legs.

Whisperlodge performances began last year and have logged about 250 participants so far, co-founders Andrew Hoepfner and Melinda Lauw said. (A third co-founder, Steph Singer, has taken a back seat and played more of a consulting role in the last year, Lauw said.) Performances last about 90 minutes and cost $70. So far they have all been in New York City, though Whisperlodge is headed next to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Hoepfner and Lauw first came to the idea through immersive theatre. While Hoepfner was working on the surrealist performance Houseworld, attendees and then performers kept bringing up ASMR. Hoepfner, who doesn’t experience ASMR, eventually connected with Lauw, who does, describing it as a “warm fuzzy feeling.”

I found Whisperlodge relaxing and unsettling, in a good way. We met at a bench at an intersection on a rainy Friday, and the performers blindfolded us and took us inside.

Each high-ceilinged room had a theme — one was a doctor’s office, the next a boudoir — and consisted of such things as being spritzed with rose water, or staring into a crystal, or listening to the crunching of differently-textured paper. As I left the performance to light rain and blaring traffic noises — which I’d found irritating before — I found myself paying attention to them, even enjoying them.

I was spritzed with rose water, stared into a crystal and listened to the crunching of differently-textured paper. As I left the performance to light rain and blaring traffic noises — which I’d found irritating before — I actually enjoyed them.

Emily Flake, a New York City cartoonist who also attended Whisperlodge, first discovered ASMR through “some Internet rabbit hole or another” and uses the videos to get to sleep. Whisperlodge was “lovely” and much more intimate than YouTube videos, she says.

The experience was also “interesting, because it’s hard to classify how to think of yourself as a participant in it. Is it a spa of which you are a patron? Is it a piece of performance art of which you are an element? It’s intimate in a way that’s extremely unusual between strangers,” Flake says.

ASMR is popular. There was even an IKEA ASMR advertisement released this month that has already racked up more than 250,000 views. But it’s still niche, so Whisperlodge includes an explanation as part of the performance. Performers are also very careful to get your consent before doing anything.

Lauw, who uses ASMR to help her sleep, explains ASMR as a way of establishing intimacy. “A lot of people, when they watch ASMR online, get attention and care from someone. What we’re doing is making those things come true in real life,” Lauw explains. “Someone is looking at you, paying attention to you, caring for you.”

But there is also something different about that level of closeness with a stranger, Hoepfner adds. “It’s kind of like this thrill-seeking act — like a bungee jump. Can you go into a room with this stranger and have a moment of intimacy?” he said.

What causes ASMR (and why) isn’t very well understood, says Craig Richard, a professor at Shenandoah University who founded the website ASMR University. Richard is also a researcher on an ASMR survey project that has received over 20,000 responses so far; preliminary results have found that most respondents experience it as relaxing, calming, soothing and sleepy.

There are theories about who experiences ASMR and why. One study suggested there may be underlying biological differences for it, Richard says, but it is hardly the final word on the subject. Those involved in the ASMR community estimate that those who experience it are certainly a minority, probably less than a third of the population.

And although nobody knows exactly what causes the “tingles,” Richard says it’s likely a “chemical cocktail” of neurotransmitters like oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins and dopamine, given the feelings of relaxation and sleepiness that are associated with ASMR.

When you connect with someone you know what do you call it? “We call it friendship, love,” Richard said. “What do you call it when a stranger does it? Well, we call it ASMR.”

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